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Copyright 1894 

BY 

A. S. Harper 
Photographkr, Tallahassee, Fla. 



li 



f : 



ANNOUNCEMENT. 



-C"M'S>- 



The subscribed committeemen of the Board of Commissioners of the County of 
Leon, in the State of Florida, announce that the preparation of the accompanying pages 
has been accomphshed under their auspices, and they are issued with their approval. The 
purpose of the pubHcation is in the interest of Immigration. Additions to the number of 
people engaged in industrial purposes in Leon County only are needed to place it 
among the most prosperous parts of the country. 

It is intended in these pages to present reliably some of the leading facts con- 
cerning conditions prevalent in the region of which they treat, trusting that any interest 
they may awaken will lead to personal inspection of the premises by readers. 

The illustrations are photographic representations of actualities, made expressly for 
this publication. 

We commend perusal of the book, it being trustworthy, and extend a cordial wel- 
come to all such persons as may be attracted by it to visit the Tallahassee country. 

W. R. WILSON, 

JOHN BRADFORD, \ Cotnmittee. 

F. T. CHRISTIE. 



FLORIDA. 

Features of the Hill Region. 



TEXT BY RICHARD C. LONG. 




OWARDS the southern edge of temperate latitudes, a Httle away from the 
Mexican sea, rises out of flat pinewood surroundings in Southern Georgia 
and Florida an unique bit of upland; "at once the most fertile, the most pic- 
turesque, and the most salubrious, south of the mountains of North Georgia." 
In autumn, wildfowl, wingmg their way out of the North, descry, outlined against 
the southern sky, profile of this elevation topping adjacent lands and sea. Thereaway, 
in perpetual sunshine, tempered with refreshing trades and pulsating monsoon, lies 
spread about the beautiful land face of the 

Tallahassee Country 

in Leon County, Florida. 

Fertility of soil and salubriousness of climate are prime factors in fitting a region 
for occupancy of human forces; add to these mildness and equability of temperature, 
regularity of seasons, facilities alike for industrial activities or recreative loiterings, amid 
picturesque surroundings, with bounteous food supply, and the essentials of social estab- 
lishment are secured. 

In the vicinity of Florida's capital, amid the charming hill region of Leon, such 
conditions prevail. 




Tallahassee Country From Leon Heights. 



Aspect of the out-country is attractive in the extreme. Mr. Maurice' Thompson, 
in his pleasing Httle romance, " The Tallahassee Girl," describes the locality as " beauti- 
fully rolling forest and field alternating; a genuinely Piedmontese landscape, the like of 
which cannot be found otherwhere in America." There are strewed prodigally abroad, 
in endless variety of effects, fine skies, translucent air, undulating distended surface lines, 
tree-grown acclivities, husbanded valleys, lighted here and there with glistening water 
bits, all decked in lavish wealth of Southern light and color. 

Here is a land delightful to drive over and to walk upon. Broad, well-kept road- 
ways that are hard and smooth ramble wantonly over the hills and away. Along their 
trend, whether down the shadowy dales, athwart the sun-lit slopes, or across the tilled 
plateaux, enchanting prospects keep actively alive sense of the beautiful in an enraptured 
beholder. 

Scarce elsewhere occurs such variety and profusion of plant life as among the 
chocolate hills of Leon. Trees, shrubs, and climbers of countless kinds, severally typi- 
cal of widely dispersed habitats, are here assembled in a very congress of their king- 
dom — superb specimens of their species, prodigies of a sun-warmed forest product, to 
be seen here and among the bayou lands of alluvial Louisiana only. 

Nor is this summer aspect of things altogether a fleeting show, as in most other 
realms. Chill winds that may break over Appalachian barriers to the northward mingle 
amid the Leon foothills with kindlier breath of southern seas. In such tempered airs 
go forth husbandmen with Christmastide to sow. Glossy-leaved tree growths, in per- 
petual green, then spread dancing shadows athwart the paths as merrily as when the 
sun hangs higher in the sky. Herds, grazing, tread the ever-springing sod, innocent of 
sheltered care, while the well-lunged people of the genial clime are out and abroad. 



Reception and entertainment in Florida, during the winter season, of jkople seek- 
ing relief from indoor confinement and ungrateful temperatures elsewhere, have assumed 
enormous proportions. The region of Leon County has given less regard to this under- 
taking than most parts of the State. 

In recent years a knowledge of conditions existing in the Tallahassee country 
has gradually crept abroad, attractive in many particulars to the several classes of visit- 
ants who, from one cause or another, are accustomed to sojourn in Florida. With the 
improvement taking place in railway and hotel service, quite respectable numbers of 
tourists or winter visitors have come to frequent surrounding here. Chiefest among 
these, perhaps, have been gentlemanly sportsmen, with their families, from Eastern, 
Western, and Middle States, to whom the most excellent quail-shooting, from Novem- 
ber to February inclusive, has proven attractive, with abundance of snipe on the mead- 
ows until May. 

Many people, too, have come to seek in Tallahassee conditions considered en- 
tirely with reference to salubriousness, and special fitness of the environment to one 
particular ailment or another; and very general approval has resulted, among sick and 
delicate folks, as to the beneficial eftects of Tallahassee airs and artesian waters. There 
is a quiet, peaceful tone pervading the surroundings of the quaint, dreamy little city, 
most gratifying to persons in ill health, who find among flowery, sun-bathed gardens, 
parks, and tree-grown avenues a yestfidness that is especially grateful. A pronounced 
difference exists between the air of the elevated region hereabouts and that of many 
parts of Florida. The sea air that reaches the Leon plateaux comes from the warm 
bosom of the Mexican Gulf, but eighteen miles away. It comes, too, through and over 
the resinous boughs of intervening miles of dry pine woods, reaching the Tallahassee 




OCKBELOCKEE, 



terraces, three hundred feet above the sea level, impregnated with curative properties of 
recoo-nized value. Great wealth of genial temperature and comfortable sunshine accom- 
panies these medicated waves of ozone, devoid of chilliness and fog. 

In the possibility of out-of-door existence for the most delicate ones for so much 
the greater part of the time, and the diversion and attraction of the beautiful gardens, 
drives, and promenades, probably lies much of the healing virtue of sojourn among the 
hospitable surroundings of Tallahassee. 

Yet another sort of folk who of recent years have been attracted to the Leon 
country are a score or more of gentlemen from American States, England, Scotland, 
and France. 

These have become purchasers of larger or smaller tracts of plantation lands, and 
permanent all the year round citizens, surrounding their homes with the countless com- 
forts and embellishments that delightful conditions here admit of 

Somewhat further along in these pages and pictures will recur the subject of 
attractions in Leon County for sportsmen, a class of visitors who, when of a thoroughly 
well-bred type, find great favor and fellowship with the plantation and covert owners of 
the region. Some account was given in the Travel Colunms of the American Field for 
January, February, and March of 1894 of the character of shooting and fishing to be had 
in Leon County, Florida, reference to which will impart reliable information to those 
desiring it. 

Immediately this publication must concern itself with setting forth some facts about 
the indtistrial relation of things in this country of ours. 

Serious-minded people will want to know how we make a living amongst all 
this picturesqueness and delightful lounging. 



Agriculture for seventy years has been the chief industrial purpose of Leon 
County people. Throughout that period success has attended here all well-directed 
efforts at husbandry. There was a time, thirty years ago, when plantation purposes of 
broadest intent prevailed on Leon's fertile uplands. Estates of hundreds of negro slaves 
and tliousands of tilled acres gave affluent incomes to proprietors. Slave labor bestowed 
on crops of grain, sugar cane, cotton, and tobacco, yielded an aggregation of produce 
valued at millions annually. 

For twenty years after the civil war there j)revailed, in all farm purposes con- 
ducted with newly freed labor, an element of risk and waste hugely discouraging in the 
undertaking. Out of the mass of well and ill directed effort under the changed condi- 
tions were gradually evolved clearer senses of things. A generation of younger men, 
respectively sons of old masters and slaves, awakened to a knowledge of mutual depen- 
dencies, and, together, learned by observation and experiment of a diversity of farm purpose 
unconsidered by their sires. W^ithin the last decade the once prevalent system of large plan- 
tation tracts, operated by tenants paying rent in kind and inxariably in cotton, has fallen 
into disfavor. Where practicable, smaller areas, more thorough tillage, improved implements, 
rotation, fertilization, and diversification of crops, have become the prevailing tendencies. 
Such temper of things induces want of immigration. Need is felt of more people, a practical 
class of farm folk, disposed to settle in the country-side, and by infusion of new ideas and 
energies give additional impetus to the newly awakened tendency of affairs. 

Thousands of acres of excellent farm lands, heretofore indispensable for the use 
of tenantry, have, under a new direction of purposes, become surplus holdings, and are 
purchasable at fair values and on easy terms. 

It is to those persons of practical farm knowledge and usage throughout the 



10 




>^_5)iii'igonLheli-^^- 



country, likely to contemplate, from one cause or another, removal to new fields of action, 
that the people of Leon County, Florida, are anxious to present the facts set forth in this 
publication. An earnest and general desire prevails among the people of the county for 
the coming among them of clever and industrious men and women, with every assur- 
ance of finding here favorable conditions for home-making in a bountiful land with civil- 
ized and disciplined surroundings. 

There are not in Leon County, State, or United States lands of any value subject 
to Homestead entry or purchase. The generally fine quality of the soil, and its adaptability 
to supporting slave forces, led to its very early settlement. 

Litending settlers for forty years past have bought their lands from private hands. 
Such purchases will be of parts of, or entire, plantation tracts, ranging from five or ten 
to several thousand acres, for the greater part cleared and under cultivation, but having 
always preserved areas of woodland. 

No speculative inflation of prices has ever obtained in connection with Leon County 
real estate. In some localities of the county values have greatly enhanced of late years, 
commanding several fold the prices of ten years ago, but such advances are invariably 
based on actual demand and boiia-fide bargain and sale, and that, too, for ordinary, gene- 
ral farm purposes, and for no boomed project of easily made fortunes. 

A radical difference exists between the nature of the soil in the greater part of 
Leon County and that of most other parts of Florida. In place of a sandy flatness, so 
commonly associated with ideas of the State, occur here, over an area of about two 
hundred square miles, an alluvium of red and chocolate colored clayey loams, piled in a 
rambling outspread of terraced hills and dales — a drift of finely ground and commin- 
gled secondary limestone measures, fetched hither from the northwestward, in compara- 



12 



tively recent geological time, by some prodigious cataclysm, and laid down immediately 
on the undisturbed face of the Pleiocenc. It is of great uniformity of texture through- 
out an average depth of forty-five feet. Fertile on top, fertile in the middle, and equally 
so at the very bottom, it, like an oilstone, is good all the way through and does not 
wear out. Sand greatly predominates over other properties. In the first foot of topsoil 
about twenty-nine times as much sand exists as clay. It is entirely free from stones 
or boulders, nor does it clod or sun-l)ake. There is in the surface soil sufficient clay to 
give decided consistency, many indigenous permanent pasture grasses and clovers taking 
a firm roothold and making deep, strong, tough sod, while under the plo\\' the earth is 
friable, puh-erizes thoroughly, and scours the share. Of the three prime elements of 
plant food, official analysis by the State's chemist discloses, in an average sample of 
unfertilized surface soil, the presence of one measure of potash, two and a half of phos- 
phoric acid, and three of nitre to each one thousand measures of soil. 

Soda, lime, and magnesia are present in slightly less proportions, with car- 
bcmic acid at a rate of about one and three-cjuarters parts in a thousand. Coupled 
with these chemical conditions there are incidental ones, such as prolonged period of 
growth, equability of temperature, regularity and copiousness of rainfall, all of which 
become potent factors in the problem of plant propagation and nutrition. 

The general averages of crop products for the entire county, as estimated from 
statistics compiled under Florida statutes b\' the Assessor of Revenue, are low. But a 
perfectly fair account of what the good farmers accomplish as average products per 
acre, on the qualities of soil described above, in the several customary crops of their 
farms, according to favorableness of seasons and thoroughness of cultivation, are, of 
corn, from fifteen to twenty-five bushels ; of oats, twenty-five to forty bushels ; of sugar- 



14 




y^ojj*^ 



cane products, from four hundred to five hundred gallons of syrup or two thousand five 
hundred pounds of sugar; of sweet potatoes, from three hundred to five hundred bushels; 
of cigar tobacco (Havana, Sumatra, or Nicaragua), from six hundred to one thousand 
pounds ; of peanuts, from forty-five to seventy bushels ; of rye, from twelve to fifteen 
bushels; of rice, from fifty to one hundred bushels; and of hay, from one to three tons. 

These accounts of soil capacities and crop products, let it be remembered, are 
given of unfertilized soil of good qualities, in its natural condition but well worked, and 
the results are general averages, exclusive of all high-class methods. 

Upon about such results for seventy years past, together with a cotton crop, the 
civilization and social establishment of this region have rested. 

A population of twenty thousand souls, together with their work animals, are 
comfortably maintained in Leon County, abundantly supplied with choice food of home 
production, with a large surplus of these and several special market or money crops to 
sell. 

No more marked departure from old-time methods has of late years occurred, in 
the region under discussion, than in the matter of grass culture. 

Within a decade the section has become a hay-producing one, and that, too, 
simply by utilizing natural resources that, while neglected, have been quite as available 
these sixty years. None of the commonly known domesticated grasses of the North 
and West are found to be of high value in Middle Florida. Orchard grass, blue grass, 
timothy, and red clover, all grow with luxuriance on the chocolate loams of Leon, provided 
human agencies are lent them in the struggle with native varieties of fitter survival. 

Indigenous to the section are four annual grasses, especially fine hay producers. 
These abundantly seed themselves, spontaneously springing up when and wherever 

16 




??.f Cud - (tfewiMs i n rne SHflOt. ;# 



land surfaces are stirred from February to October. 

No setting aside of time or place is necessary for their accommodation in farm 
economy. But the same year, and every year, along with, or as immediate successors to, 
most other crops, theirs is an assured presence, necessitating only good husbandry, at 
a minimum cost, to reap benefits and values attainable elsewhere with domesticated 
varieties at an enormously greater expense. 

" Crab grass" [Panicitm Sanguinale), " Crow-foot grass" [Dactylocteniwn Egypt- 
iami), ' Barn grass" [Eleusme Indica,) and " Water grass" [Paspalum Lceve), are the 
four chief native grasses, among the annuals, most generally and profitably turned to 
farm account. 

To these four grass types farmers are here indebted for hay supplies. Land may 
be put down to grass simply by breaking and harrowing ; the seed are already there. 
It depends upon when the land is turned down which kind of grass will come. Before 
July ist "crab grass" will habilitate treated surfaces; after that time "crow-foot" is apt 
to take possession. 

Oat stubble, left unbroken, will produce from one ton to a ton and a half of crab 
grass in July. If turned down and harrowed in early June it will produce two to three 
tons crab hay in August or September. 

Illustrations on page 15 are of the cutting, during the first week in August, of 
grass produced on stubble land without breaking up the ground after removal of the 
grain crop in June. In the picture "Crab grass," taken upon the beautiful " Lake Annie" 
stock farm, the preceding crop was of German millet. Three tons per acre were taken 
off this close in June. The August mow was estimated as likely to furnish a ton and a 
half of crab hay. In September will come off another cut of aftermath entirely of crab 



18 



grass, and of about one and a half tons weight when cured. Another picture, "Crow-foot 
and Barn Grass," is a scene on " Ethel Meadows" farm, where on August 7th an esti- 
mated cut of two tons cured hay is being taken from a surface where fifty bushels of oats 
per acre were harvested in early June, and the stubble left unturned to promptly reha- 
bilitate itself by spontaneous seeding of crow-foot and barn grass. This close will also 
furnish another mowing in September heavier than the one being removed in the picture. 

" Peas and beggar-weed" show about four tons of cured forage being taken, in 
late August, from land yielding oat crop in early June, stubble then turned down and 
peas sown broadcast. There will be October aftermath. 

Every second year, in the course of customary rotative methods, only the August 
cuttine of crrass occurs on these unbroken stubbles, after which the areas are turned 

o o 

over and broadcasted to cow-peas, which latter crop, after producing seed for another 
year, are turned down in November for manure and the fall planting of oats sown upon 
it. Two market crops, one of grain and one of hay, and a valuable quid pro quo re- 
turned to the land in manurial peas, all the same year, is a reciprocal ride-and-tie ar- 
rangement that keeps a man, a beast, and an acre fat. 

There are also indigenous in Leon County several perennial grasses, which are 
not only bountiful hay producers when desired, but bear treading admirably, forming 
close, heavy sod, and constitute permanent all-the-year-round pastures for horses, cattle, 
sheep, or hogs. 

Chiefest among these are three varieties of " Sedge" [Andropogan Virgiriicus, A. 
Furcatus, and A. Macrourus), " Bermuda grass" [Cynodon Dactylon), and " Smut grass" 
[Spombulus Indiciis). These several pasture grasses are veritable " mud-sills," upon 
which rests a solid superstructure of diversified farm purpose and prosperity in this 



Vd 



delightful region. Among the illustrations on page 17 is shown Bermuda pasture at 
" Clavo" farm, and " Andropogan" or sedge pasture at " Knuck an Nimma," both of 
which speak for themselves in the appearance of the herds. 

A unique feature of the methods pursued on " Knuck an Nimma" is that, exxept 
a few acres in sugar cane, there is not an acre in cultivation on the farm. The whole 
business is in sedge pasture, divided in twain, a winter and a summer walk. The herd 
is never penned except to be milked night and morning. Not a shelter on the place. 
The herd graze all night in the summer time, and lie in the shade cud-chewing by 
day. The proprietor told us his herd paid him net, on his entire farm of four hundred 
and eighty acres, five dollars per acre per annum. 

To those unfamiliar with the character and value of native Florida grasses, the 
following table of analyses of nutritive content and estimated market values, compiled 
by Mr. Peter Collier, of the Agricultural Bureau at Washington, may prove of in- 
terest : 





tii 


























6 


tn 












■J-. 






% 


•a 






2 







X 


c 




2 


rt 


cd 





^ 









.c 




c 




'J3 


•^ 


3 


'3 




L. 




Si 


QJ 

3 


S 





5; 




V 


« 


t^ 


£ 


^ 


en 

































M 




u 


ca 


m 


U 


\r. 




p; 


1 — . 


m 


Carbohydrates.. 


64 21 


6173 


63.10 


72.17 


60.08 


66.76 


53-31 


6. .38 


61.08 


63.28 


62. 78 


54-09 


Albuminoids 


7.21 


987 


9.70 


6.90 


2-57 


6 90 


8.38 


10.59 


1 1.05 


10.39 


12 92 


26. 14 


Cellulose 


2'-35 


23-94 


22.70 


14.85 


28.35 


21 98 


27 50 


22.00 


10.96 


19.27 


20 32 


13.06 


Ash 


7- 23 


4 46 


4-5° 


6.08 


8.00 


4-36 


10.81 


6.03 


7.81 


7.06 


3-38 


7.71 




-potal 


100.00 


100.00 


100.00 


100.00 


100.00 


100.00 


100.00 


100.00 


100.00 


100.00 


100.00 








Value per ton 


























as hay food. 


$15-65 


17.07 


13.80 


i6.oo 


10.64 


15.62 


J4.45 


17-35 


>7-5° 


17-50 


20.35 


2 I 02 



Comparison of relative qualities of grasses indicated above shows that in carbo- 
hydrates and albuminoids, the valuable parts of forage, more than half of the native 
Florida varieties named are richer and more valuable than the three well-known do- 
mesticated kinds — orchard grass, blue grass, and timothy; and in the constituent 
cellulose, a non-digestible and valueless propertv, the proportion is less. 

Evolution and development of hay-cropping and sod-setting gave new direction 
to the management of live stock in Leon. Along with stack-building and loft-filling 
came better herd making and tending. 

Dairying 
developed into an established industry. There are in Leon County more than fifty farms 
devoted in part or in whole to the production of butter for market. Jersey cattle, regis- 
tered, thoroughbred, and of high grade, predominate in the herds. 

Approximately three thousand head of such cows and heifers constitute the butter- 
producing force of the county, estimated to be an increase in ten years of not less than 
four hundred per centum. 

The invariable custom in the management of these herds is with ojjen pasturage 
throughout the year, supplemented in winter and spring with daily rations of hay, stover, 
ensilage, fodder corn, bran, cottonseed, corn meal, potatoes, turnips, millet, or pea vines, 
but in every instance the extra feed stuffs are the product of the farm where fed. Esti- 
mate, based on as exhaustive data as are attainable, places the average annual product in 
butter per ccnv at two hundred pounds. 

Prices realized for this product are from twenty-fi\'e to thirty cents per pound. It 
is estimated that the dairies of the county will market, during the year 1894, 140 tons 
of butter, of a value of $75,600. 




Watei^ Oah Hef^^>'>'j, 



This is an encouraging showing for a young industry, and gives great promise 
for the future. Rapidly as the dairy business has grown of late, not one-tenth of the 
territory in the county best adapted to such purposes, having running water and mea- 
dows, has as yet been appropriated to that end. The enterprise might assume twenty- 
fold its present dimensions before choice locations for the purpose will become scarce. 
Introduction of mechanical separators in cream-gathering has given impetus to the industry. 

An item of good profit has attended herd-owning in a demand from East, West, 
and South Florida for milch cows in winter, to supply milk to the great crowds of 
winter visitors frequenting those parts. Butter-makers are enabled in that way to cull 
their herds annually of copious milkers who produce little butter. 

Practical dairymen readily recognize advantages attending shaded pastures. The 
magnificent trees that invariably dot the pasture lands of Leon may be counted not least 
among the favorable conditions of dairying there. 

The projectors of this publication unhesitatingly recommend to industrious people 
everywhere, as a well-tested project, dairy farming in Leon County, Florida. 

Lands, cattle, grass, water, shade, kindly climate, inexpensive appurtenances, health- 
ful condition of herds and herders, with ready market, amid civilized and neighborly 
surroundings, await those who may choose to come. 

This is a business whose income begins with its establishment. No waiting weary 
and expensive years for "trees to come into bearing"; "golden fruit" drops off the 
dasher at the first churning. One of the largest and most profitable dairies in Leon 
County twelve years ago consisted of two cheap old cows, while the covered end of a 
horse trough at the well was the dairy for the first year. 

Rearing of Horses and Mules, while carried on upon a less extensive scale 



24 



by individuals than in the antebellum days, attains now very considerable proportions in 
the aggregate of foals dropped annually in the county. Several proprietors have made 
the breeding of standard horses and mules a leading feature of their farm purpose. 
Excellent types of both animals are practical results under prevailing conditions. Abun- 
dant supply of rich, nutritious pasture grass for ten months, with cheap oats, corn, and 
hay, are calculated to insure good results in horse-breeding. Most excellent qualities 
of wind and bottom are proverbially characteristic of Middle Florida bred stock. There 
are in the county, in stud, many good stallions thoroughbred and standard, and several 
Jacks of high degree. Much of the riding, driving, and work stock of the section is 
native born, and their propagation is steadily on the increase. On the 27th of June, while 
engaged in securing photographs for illustrating this work, we saw in a pasture on Lake 
Jackson five handsome brood mares and ten mule colts, half of whom were coming 
two-year-olds. These animals were in fine condition, the colts well grown and shapely, 
the lot quite equal to anything of the kind we have ever seen in Tennessee or Ken- 
tucky. Speaking admiringly of them, their owner assured us that neither the dams nor 
colts had eaten grain or hay since November of the previous year, but had subsisted 
entirely on the grass of the pasture where they ran, and that during that time no day 
or night had been spent under a shelter. There were about four hundred acres in the 
pasture where they ran, along with three hundred head of catde. Walking over and 
inspecting its character disclosed among its growths Bermuda, smut grass, numerous 
sedges, Japan clover, maiden cane, crab grass, crow-foot, water grass, barn grass, 
nimblewill, carpet grass, and other unknown or unnamed species. 

It is the universal impression among all Middle Floridians whose experience has 
offered opportunities for judging, that in matters of wind, endurance, pluck, and heart- 



25 



iness of constitution Leon County bred horses, especially among thoroughbreds, are 
incomparably superior to the average class of stock fetched hither from the North and, 
West. Many hundreds of the mounts among Georgia and Florida cavalry durino- the 
civil war were Leon County bred, and within the familiar knowledge of the writer is the 
invariable reputation such stock bore in the several commands for great superiority. It 
is certainly among the assured accomplishments of the future that the rearing of horses 
on an extensive and approved scale shall obtain among the hill farms of the Leon 



region. 



No character of live stock have ever been more successfully handled in Leon 
County than 

Sheep. 

Their care since the civil war has fallen into disuse rather than disfavor, owing largely 
to the system of tenant-farming becoming prevalent with the emancipation of slavery. 

It is the assurance of flock-owners in the county that their flocks are the best 
interest-bearing property on their tax lists. Sixty years' experience has demonstrated 
great immunity from disease among Middle Florida flocks, and their attendance with as 
small percentage of loss from misadventure as in any part of the world, perhaps. 

The dry, friable character of the soil avoids the dreaded foot plagues. The pure, 
wholesome character of water supply, with sandy margins and bottoms, prevents innume- 
rable maladies derived from polluted sources of drink among Western flocks. There are 
no chilly winds and freezing temperatures to decimate the new-born lambs. Young are 
dropped with impunity at any season in the open runs. Barns and shelters are non- 
essentials, and grass is attainable the year round. Sheep may be as carelessly and 
economically handled as in Southwestern frontier or Mexican regions, with the advantage 



2ft 




?\ j^KS-L^ND COLt 5- / 



over conditions there — in the matter of early lamb and fat mutton supply — of being at 
the very doors of centres of demand like Tampa, Jacksonville, Savannah, Augusta, etc. 

An idea now beginning to take form among certain farmers is sheep on permanent 
sod of Bermuda, over acres set to orchards of pears or pecans. It seems an unique 
feature in sheep-walking, this planting over hundreds of acres great groves of pecan trees, 
furnishing a protecting shade to the flocks, while the flocks in turn make grow and 
abundantly productive the nut-producing trees. Both " Bermuda," " smut, " and " mis- 
sion " grass grow luxuriantly in the shade. Experimentation in a small way in this 
direction has been attended with such satisfactory results as are likely to rapidly popular- 
ize the scheme and give rise to quite extensive conversion of old cotton plantations 
into sheep pastures and nut or other fruit orchards. 

Hogs have for these many years been veritable entities among the corn-growing 
acres of Leon — hogs indeed, without a suspicion of " razor-back " taint in their 
swinish veins, lineal descendants of as Berkshireish progenitors as ever elsewhere sought 
the mire. 

In past times immense supplies of pork and bacon, necessary to support great 
slave forces, were produced here on the plantations, besides quantities of bacon and 
hams made for sale. 

Meat production on no such scale prevails now, yet no good farmer in Leon 
County would feel his year's operations a success did he fail to " make meat to do 
him." Hog products can be produced in Leon perhaps as cheaply as on the corn 
lands of the West. The grain-food supply, had there at minimum cost, is substituted 
successfully in Middle Florida by the limitless and inexpensive production of farina- 
ceous roots. Sweet potatoes, chufas, peanuts, artichokes, and cassava are available 



2.S 



crops at minimum cost of production, and in Florida latitudes remain in the ground 
during winter, the hogs harvesting their own keeping. 

With corn at thirty-five cents per bushel to " harden off" in January, there are 
no drawbacks to hog production. 

Poultry forms a conspicuous item in a schedule of Leon County farm produce, 
being a source of universal home comfort and luxury, as well as one of no mean 
profit. Equable temperatures insure perpetual supplies of insect and plant food, and 
obviate the necessity of elaborate housing. Fowls run at large and forage the year 
round, and, where well fed, yield eggs at all seasons of the year. Besides a most gener- 
ous supply of chickens, eggs, turkeys, ducks, geese, and guineas for town and country 
home consumption, large quantities of each are exported to supply demand in East, 
West, and South Florida. 

It is in the combination of General Farm Purposes that consist the customary 
surroundings and occupations of Leon County country people. Farmers' families consist 
here, as a rule, of intelligent, well-bred folks, polite and kindly in manner and feeling, 
while typically Southern in habits and customs. They are generally domiciled in com- 
fortable, roomy homes of a structure best suited to the climate, surrounded with spa- 
cious, shady groves of stately trees ; flower-yards, vegetable gardens, and orchards are 
invariable features of home environment. There exist throughout the region liberal 
social sentiment and pronounced hospitality. 

Greatly the majority of the farming people are the descendants of early settlers 
from the rural districts of the Carolinas, (jcorgia, Tennessee, and Alabama. Of recent 
years there have settled at points throughout the county occasional immigrants from 
Western and Northern American States, with now and then a representative from 



30 



England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Holland, or Germany. No element of Scandinavian 
origin is as yet to be found here. 

Nowhere are there special fruit, vegetable, poultry farms, or any other one-purpose 
enterprises. The custom is to live abundantly and comfortably. A variety of food com- 
modities for man and beast, with a surplus for sale, is the established order of things, 
and then to supplement such prime essentials with some one or more special crops as 
market or money features, to be sold off the premises. 

Heretofore for sixty-odd years cotton has been the chief commodity looked to for 
supplying cash. It still remains an almost invariable feature of farm purpose, notwith- 
standing the low prices prevailing for some years, which is owing to its being always 
salable, at some price, at any and every store, and of the further fact that it occupies, in 
its cultivation and harvest, time of regularly employed labor that would otherwise be idle. 

With the constantly improving facilities of railway transportation and quick transit, 
innumerable side industries have become possible profitable pursuits. So that, along with 
the regular occupation of the general farm, every one fosters some little special scheme 
for which he niay have a fancy or particular knowledge. It may be a few hundred 
crates, at a particular season, of some one vegetable or another : Irish potatoes in April, 
at from five to ten dollars per barrel in New York; an acre or two of egg plants in 
late June and early July, worth a like price per bushel crate. Cabbage, cucumbers, 
beans, beets, onions, tomatoes, and lettuce are all possibilities of good profitableness 
with Leon farmers to the extent of a few hundred dollars annually. 

So the growing of seeds for seedmen is sometimes a moneyed adjunct of a farm. 

Corn, oats, rye, hay, fodder, sugar cane, potatoes, peanuts, with millet and sor- 
ghum, are staple crops invariably looked out for, while hogs and poultry as universally 



31 



accompany them ; and on every farm are cows and abundant milk and butter. 

Fruit-growing, except in the matter of Le Conte, Chinese, Sand, and Keifer pears, 
has not assumed marketable proportions among Leon farmers. Home supplies, how- 
ever, of plums, peaches, figs, and oranges are to be had very generally, with quantities 
of blackberries and strawberries. 

Of the three varieties of pears mentioned above very extensive plantings have 
been had. There are possibly one thousand acres in the county set to this fruit. An acre 
carries fifty trees. At seven years and upwards, three barrels to the tree is a good ave- 
rage yield, and two dollars per barrel net is about the experience of ten years' projecting. 
The conversion of large tracts into pears and grass, or pecans and grass, with sheep or 
Angoras tcj under-tread, is likely to become a popular and successful scheme in these 
parts. 

In the matter of vegetable supply Leon possesses unique advantages. Generally, 
elsewhere in Florida, surfaces are poor and sandy. With cosUy fertilizing and irrigating 
vegetables are grown during the winter and early spring. With the opening of summer 
the sand gets dry and as hot as newly roasted coffee, and vegetation of a succulent 
nature disappears from the face of the earth. In Leon County, with her more tenacious 
and fertile clayey loams, and regularity of rainfall throughout the summer, growing gar- 
dens are not only practicable, but are established and indispensable features of every farm 
surrounding. Indeed, at whatever season of the year one tests the hospitality of the 
farm homes in Leon, he must be impressed with the bountiful and varied food supply of 
the inmates, and particularly with how little of such luxuriousness is attended with a 
moneyed outlay. 

Repeatedly, during the taking of the photographs for this publication, the author 



and his artist companion were recipients of a bounteous entertainment at boards literally 
groaning under a burden of viands. Fish, flesh, fowls, and fodder stuffs of delicious 
qualities, delightfully prepared, were proffered us everywhere ; and, positively, salt, black 
pepper, and coffee were the only commodities among the lot not a product of the farms 
where we were entertained. 

To people unaccustomed, in other less fortunate parts of the country, to rely on a 
garden and orchard every day in the year for an abundant and varied food supply, there 
is scarcely a just appreciation of what figure such resource cuts in the living expense 
of a farmer's household. To be thoroughly well fed the year round, and no occasion 
to put out money to secure it, means just the difference between profitable and unprofit- 
able farming. 

A feature of natural conditions existing amid the admirable farm lands of Middle 
Florida is the presence there of an indigenous growth greatly supeyior to red clover as a 

Renovator of Worn Lands. 

Desmodiitiii, or "beggar weed," as termed in the South, is a slender-stem plant 
with spreading, seedy top, growing often ten feet in height. Belonging to the Legu- 
uiinoscc, pre-eminently among its kind is this plant rich in potash, phosphoric acid, and 
nitre, and peculiarly fitted for extracting these several plant foods from the subsoil and 
atmosphere. Whatever, in agricultural experiences elsewhere, red clover may have 
accomplished as a renovator of exhausted farm lands, is greatly surpassed in these South- 
lands by the prodigious capacities of "beggar weed" in this regard. An enormous 
growth of tap-root penetrates deep into the subsoil, and through stout lateral feeders 
fetches from the subsoil rich stores of inorganic properties, while the dense, rank growth 

34 



of foliage gathers abundantly of nitre. 

The Agricultural Department at Washington has published the following com- 
parative analysis of these two plants : 



Carbohydrates, per cent 
Albuminoids, " 

Cellulose, " 

Ash, 




Red Clover. 



4 -o 
16.1 

35-1 
7.8 



In these figures the albuminoids contained in desmodium, as to those in red 
clover, are 132 to 100, or nearly one-third greater. In comparative bulkiness of product 
per acre, desmodium, which averages six feet high, is to red clover, growing at an 
average of two feet, as 300 is to 100, or three times greater. 

In comparative cost of production desmodium is an indigenous crop, sure to 
spring up spontaneously in Leon County, Florida, in June of every year, w^herever sur- 
faces are stirred ; is an annual, and by the end of the year leaves a crop of stems, 
leaves, and roots weighing an average of ten tons per acre. 

Mr. Collier, of the Agricultural Department, estimates as among the available con- 
tents of one ton of desmodium, eight pounds of potash, sixteen pounds of phosphoric 
acid, and forty pounds of ammonia. An acre, then, of average beggar weed growth 
would approximate tenfold those amounts, or relatively eighty pounds of potash, one hun- 
dred and sixty pounds of phosphoric acid, and four hundred pounds of ammonia, wiiich at 



35 



market prices for these commodities — that is, five and a half cents per pound for the two 
former, and fifteen cents per pound for the latter — would amount to seventy-two dollars. 
Or, approximately, to secure so much plant food and supply it upon an acre, by the pur- 
chase of commercial fertilizers, as is contained in the natural product of an acre of average 
desmodium, a farmer would have to expend seventy-two dollars in fertilizer and then 
transport and apply it. The fact that there is an annual repetition of this extraor- 
dinary manurial application to cultivated lands in Leon County, without cost, and actually 
in spite of a farmer, is of itself a feature of sufficient value to attract hitherwards pracd- 
cal agriculturists who know something of the reciprocity of tillage. On page is of this 
work the picture " Peas and Beggar Weed " shows a nine weeks" growth of cow-peas 
and desmodium being mown for forage ; and on page 33 " Desmodium to turn under " 
is a squint at a forty-acre field of beggar weed which has come voluntarily on oat 
stubble since the cutting of the grain, middle of June, and the land not stirred or broken 
afterwards. Just seventy days have elapsed since the " beggar weed" in the picture 
sprang up. The crop was about four and a half feet high when photographed, and 
will double its height during September. Imagine turning under such a crop, in which, 
per acre, accurate scientific analysis says there are of potash eighty pounds, phosphoric 
acid one hundred and sixty pounds, and of ammonia four hundred ; then, on the same 
page, look at the picture "Corn — 40 bushels per acre, without fertilizer" and compre- 
hend how it all happens. "Without fertilizing" means, in that place, without any outlay 
of time, money, or labor in securing plant food — merely utilizing the natural condi- 
tions already there. 

In the foregoing glance we have taken at some of the salient features of indus- 
trial purposes as they present themselves in surroundings here, conservadve views 




(.- N.y. y 



have been taken of all matters. We might have spoken boastfully of the great enter- 
prise of growing cigar tobacco at two dollars per pound, and given photographs of per- 
haps fifty large, substantial tobacco barns that have been erected within three years last 
past. When that industry becomes better understood and established, when the country's 
product shall have acquired an uniform quality and found a ready and regular market, 
it will be ample time to advertise the industry as a reliably fixed resource in Leon 
County farming. No doubt such conditions are in store for us. But production of cigar 
tobacco, especially the Nicaragua and Sumatra leaf, for wrappers, embraces a process of 
curing and preparation by the farmer, before it is marketable, that as yet is but slightly 
understood by the majority who have tackled the business. So, too. we have studiously 
avoided enumerating among the ordinary well-established and practical farm industries so 
important a matter as wine-making, for instance. Not because no wine is made in Leon 
County, but because Leon farmers generally know nothing about grape culture. 

A half dozen or more vineyards in Leon, in the hands generally of Europeans, 
have yielded most satisfactory results. 

Excellent grapes of numerous varieties are by these gentlemen successfully and 
profitably grown for market, and many thousand gallons of both red and white wine 
are annually produced by one of them. Nevertheless, wine-making is far from being one 
of the recognized resources of Leon County. 

Hundreds of former visitors to Tallahassee can recall the native claret and sauterne 
served at the Leon to its guests, and testify to its excellence, as well as did the 
judges at Chicago last year when they awarded numerous prizes and diplomas to 
M. Dubois for the extensive and attractive display he made there from the sunny hill- 
sides of San Louis and Andalusia vineyards in this county. 



38 



What we have striven to accompHsh in these pages and pictures is simply to 
introduce our beautiful and attractive surroundings exactly as they now are. 

They are by no means as they once were, nor, indeed, as we hope and con- 
fidendy expect they will be in the future; but we want help in the good work of pushing 
forward the development of things hereabouts. We want good earnest folks to come and 
assist us. Perhaps when fair-minded people come amongst us and grow familiar with the 
environment, their wonder will be, not that we have prospered no more of late years, but 
rather that through all the embarrassments and perplexities of political and social reconstruc- 
tion and financial stringencies we have been so well preserved in conditions of well-doing. 

So much, then, of these pages as treat of topics interesting to home-seekers of a 
practical farming turn of mind, are sent out with confident assurance that whatever repre- 
sentations they contain, the same are simply facts, touching which, and in further 
detail, people from every quarter are invited to inquire or inspect for themselves. 

Of the general healthfulncss of Leon County seventy years of civilized settlement 
render good account. Throughout that period of time, experience of differently con- 
ditioned and habituated people show a phenomenal freedom from prevalence of bronchial 
or pulmonary complaints. In the absence of hereditary tendencies towards weakness in 
the organs involved in that character of disease, appearances of such troubles are exceed- 
ingly rare, while it is recognized that rapid recovery and generally permanent relief 
from that class of ailments results to sufferers from elsewhere who seek asylum in 
Leon County airs. 

Of that doctor-born class of distempers popularly termed ''malarial,'' Leon County 
has quite a fashionable proportion, since the catalogue embraces usually every physi- 
cal distraction that may arise from abused digestion and brutally overtaxed nerves, for 



m 



which two typical causes are injudicious eating and drinking. But that there prevails in 
the atmosphere of the beautiful, dry, sea-fanned hill-tops of Leon County an insidious 
miasmatic exhalation, winter or summer, that is poisonous and deleterious to human 
health, is as preposf:rous as that the breath of the Goddess Venus should smell of 
onions or small beer. 

There are in Tallahassee and surrounding country gentlemen of the medical pro- 
fession whose methods are as modern and whose physic is as noisome as otherwhere. 

Climatic conditions are exceedingly equitable ; 15° Fahr. is the difference between 
mean winter and summer temperatures. The maximum summer temperature in Talla- 
hassee has been 95° Fahr., but that only for an hour or two on a single day in 
exceptional years, while 19° Fahr. is the lowest register for years at a time. The sea- 
son of storm and rain is not in winter. Sunshine and warm airs from the Mexican sea 
hard by are prevailing conditions then, with an occasional ugly drizzle, but without cold. 

In summer the nights in the Leon hills are always cool, and cover is a neces- 
sity to health and comfort. With grass-grown surfaces everywhere, endless canopies 
of shade, and the regular pulsation of the Gulf monsoon, we feel justified in awarding 
the palm to Leon highlands, for delightful summer wear, over any Southern realm we 
wot of. 

Educational matters are on a satisfactory footing. There are separate free schools 
for whites and negroes in every neighborhood in the county. The West Florida Semi- 
nary, a co-educational institute under State auspices, with primary, high school, and 
collegiate departments, is located at Tallahassee ; while in the city, as well as at several 
country centres, private schools with competent instructors are established. 

Tallahassee has two commodious hotels, the Leon and St. James, and numbers of 



41 



regularly conducted boarding houses offering comfortable accommodations ; besides which, 
many families are accustomed during the winter season to furnish private boarding, etc. 

Gas and artesian water-works, artificial ice, and horse cars are among the con- 
veniences of the place, and an excellent fish-market is not to be forgotten. Well -sup- 
plied stocks of merchandise are to be found in all the usual lines. 

The exceptionally enjoyable driveways over and around the picturesque country 
have fostered a livery that would be creditable to centres of greater, importance, and the 
reciprocal relations of moderate charges and generous patronage have tended to make 
riding and driving an habitual and inexpensive pastime with every one. 

The negroes of Leon County are, as a class, sober, law-abiding, amiable, working 
people. Under the crude methods of agricultural purpose that obtained in the South 
under the institution of slavery, these people became trained to a high state of indus- 
trial proficiency. The race is just as capable of being taught and directed now as 
then. Those earnest, fair-minded farmers in Leon County who themselves know how, 
experience no insurmountable difficulties in teaching colored laborers to perform satis- 
factory and skilful labor in field, orchard, garden, dairy, or elsewhere that docility, 
endurance, and ordinary intelligence are required. 

Promise was given heretofore of saying something more of the facilities offered in 
the Tallahassee country for shooting and fishing. 

Cultivated people with a taste for field sports, who come with their families and 
sojourn among our coverts, have found great favor among Leon County people, and 
have come to be specially considered by proprietary interest in the extension to them of 
invitation to shoot the preserves. Indeed, such game preserves as are kept are chiefl)' 



42 



maintained with a view of securing good shooting to winter visitors who come to 
Tallahassee. 

Quail are abundant throughout Middle Florida. The cover is generally heavy 
and it requires strong, windy dogs to work it. Extensive cornfields, ordinaril}', in the 
lower places, bordered with sedgy hillsides, interspersed with copse, bramble patches, 
ditch and hedge rows, are prevailing conditions, with plenty of water for dogs. There 
are no fences in the county except wire ones about the pasture lands. Vehicles can 
turn out from highways at all points and drive in any direction for miles, unimpeded, 
thus enabling greatly extended areas to be gone over in gi\'en time. Livery men are 
well supplied with hunting outfits, arranged for hauling dogs and shooters, and the 
drivers are practical guides, familiar with the covert, etc. 

The season of the year in which have been prepared the illustrations for this 
work has precluded the insertion of illustrations of the hunting field. But happy fortune 
enabled us, one day, to come upon a local disciple of Sir Izaak — T. B. and his friend 
Richards, while on one of their predatory outings after bass in the deep pure waters of 
Ocheelochee — when we " scooped "' them in the act. It was around their camp fire 
under the magnolias that the real qualities of an Ocheelochee six-pound " big mouth" 
impressed itself upon our soul. T. B. is an artist with a fish skillet. 

When the quail season closes on the last day of February, the shooting at jack- 
snipe remains excellent for six weeks. Wide areas of snipe meadows occur in the lake 
valleys around Tallahassee. Bags counting well up into the hundred are not uncommon 
to a single gun.. 

Proximity and ready accessibility by rail of the Gulf coast, twenty-odd miles 
away offers an inexhaustible field for water-fowl shooting and sea fishing, both of which 

44 



sports involve there the taking of a variety and supply of fin and feather to be found 
nowhere else at that season. Comfortable hostelries at St. Mark's, New Port, Lanark, 
Carrabelle, and Appalachicola offer. 

Transit east and west of Leon County^ by the Florida Central l'v: Peninsular R. R., 
with widely diverging connections at either end, has for years made available to a 
majority of her people facilities for reaching markets on generally satisfactory terms. 
Circuitness of route from populous centres to Tallahassee has, however, somewhat mili- 
tated against the regularity and extent of tourist travel and sojourn to the flowery cap- 
ital. Subject of most determined congratulation in this connection has arisen within the 
year last past to the people of Leon County, in that William Clark, the great thread- 
spinning Scotchman, together with some associates, foreign and American, has found 
interest in parts hereabouts. 

A syndicate of New York and Paisley, Scodand, by the investment of large cap- 
ital in Leon, Wakulla, and Franklin county lands, have at once, as if by magic, converted 
the whole southern part of Leon and the coast country beyond into industrial centres 
of lumber manufacturing, production of naval stores, and awakened farm purpose. A 
thoroughly well built and equipped railroad of fifty miles — Carrabelle, Tallahassee Sz 
Georgia — southwest from Tallahassee to deep water in a grand harbor at Carrabelle, 
on St. James Island ; the establishment of a line of steamships from that point 
to the several trunk-line connections at Mobile, Ala., with the erection of capacious 
mills, stores, and hotels along its line and the blufty shore of the Mexican sea, 
have simply converted a wild, big game range into a busy, noisy, industrial 
territory, while the natives stood staring agape. The crowning glory, to Leon County, 
of these Scotchmen's scheme is to be realized immediately in the determined purpose of 



45 



extending their railway line northward from Tallahassee, through the magnificent farm 
lands of North Leon, to the popular winter rendezvous of Thomasville, Georgia, connect- 
ing there with the Plant system of railways and hotel entertainment. The accomplish- 
ment of this achievement has for years been the crying need of Tallahassee, the one essen- 
tial requisite to her establishment, as the most desirable and attractive point for winter 
visitation and sojourn, not only in Florida, but veritably in the entire South — the one 
point where, high up amid dry, resinous waves of sea-fanned sunshine and ozone, 
exempt from chilly fogs of Atlantean influences, and alike sheltered from blizzardy tenden- 
cies by Appalachian barriers, tired and enfeebled mortals mav seek sanctuary and go 
forth again to usefulness and joy. 

Among the pleasant things of life in Leon, whether for a winter visit or perma- 
nent abiding, is the prodigal grandeur and loveliness of floral surroundings. Amids 
bewildering wealth of ornamental plant life, roses, camellias, and jasmine here eclipse all 
competitors in luxuriance of growth and blossom. 

The last group of illustrations is " Bits among the Shrubberries," "Camellia Trees," 
is of plants twenty feet high, forty feet in circumference, maturing from ten thousand 
to fifteen thousand magnificent camellia japonica blossoms in a season. Rose vines 
climb to housetops and are decked with a profusion of bloom indescribably beautiful, and 
are far from being least attractive among the " Features of the Hill Country of Florida." 



46 



How TO Get to Tallahassee: 

FROM THE NORTHWEST, 

Take any of the roads leading to St. Louis, Louisville, Evansville, or Cincinnati, and 
thence by the Louisville & Nashville to River Junction, where direct connection for Tallahassee 
is made via the Florida Central & Peninsular. 

Or, after reaching Nashville, take the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis, the Western 
& Atlantic, the Central and the Georgia Southern & Florida to Lake City, and thence direct to 
Tallahassee. There are through sleepers on this route from Nashville to Lake City. 

If coming from the Southwest take the roads leading to New Orleans, or Mobile, and 
thence the Louisville & Nashville to River Junction, thence the Florida Central & Peninsular to 
Tallahassee. 

From Eastern points, take any of the roads leading to Washington, thence by the Southern 
Railway Co. to Columbia, South Carolina, and thence direct to Tallahassee by the Florida 
Central & Peninsular. This also is a through route with cars running between New York and 
Jacksonville without change. 

By steamers from the East, go to Savannah by Ocean Steamship Co., and from Savannah 
to Tallahassee by the Florida Central & Peninsular, 

Or take the Clyde steamers to Jacksonville, and thence to Tallahassee by the Florida 
Central & Peninsular, 

Or the Mallory steamers to Fernandina or Brunswick, from which points there are con- 
nections direct to Tallahassee via the Florida Central & Peninsular. 

Any information furnished by 

^\'. O. AMES, Agent, Tallahassee, 
J. L. ADAMS, General Eastern Agent, 353 Broadway, New York, 
Dr. LOUIS BARKAN, Immigration Agent, 13 State Street, New York, 
W. G. COLEMAN, General Traveling Agent, 353 Broadway, New York. 
Send for maps, pamphlets, etc., to 

A. O. Mac DONELL, General Passenger Agent, Jacksonville, Fla, 




MEXICO 






"^TkAoSS 






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014 497 134 6 



...L. 



